Collaboration at Scale: Prioritizing a Backlog13-Dec-2017

Collaboration at Scale

Designed for Scrum-centric organizations with more than 10 Scrum teams, the Collaboration at Scale webinar series provides focused, outcome-driven solutions to collaboration problems faced by Product Owners, ScrumMasters, and Development Teams.

Produced by the Scrum Alliance and Conteneo, Inc., we’re proud of the many distinguished experts who share their wisdom in our series.

Carlton Nettleton

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Luke Hohmann

2-4 WEEK SPRINT

DAILY SCRUM MEETING

(EVERY 24 HOURS)

POTENTIALLY SHIPABLE PRODUCT INCREMENT

SPRINT BACKLOGPRODUCT BACKLOG

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Common Scrum Challenges

Tech Debt

Release Planning

Roadmap

Retros

Liftoffs

Refining

Value-Based

Backlogs

Priorities

Depend-encies

Done, Done

CI/CD

TODAY:Prioritizing Backlogs

Jan 2018: Managing Technical

Architectures

How are your prioritizing your backlog?

• Business value• Customer satisfaction• ROI (Return-On-Investment)• HIPPO (HIghest Paid Person’s Opinion)• Salesperson requests• Technical risk• I don’t know

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POLL QUESTION

Agenda

1 Why Prioritize?2 Attributes and Weights3 Prioritizing for Profit4 Business vs. Dev Priorities

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Why Prioritize?

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but if you prioritize

We Prioritize At All Levels of Agile

Daily

Sprint

Strategy

Portfolio

Product

Release

Exec

PO

DevTeam

1-4 wks

2-9 mos

1 – 3 years

years

many years

Portfolio Map

Backlog & Release Plan

Vision & Roadmap

Organizational level Planning level Time Horizon Artifact

Markets

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Customers want “big chunks” of value! These “epics” belong in your roadmap prioritized by time and market opportunity.

Agile teams want “small items that fit a Sprint”. These go into your backlog.Sep 2016 Webinar

Agile Roadmapping

http://bit.ly/2huAcxL

Backlogs have a “Mushy Middle”

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FeatureUser story

nnn

Bug FixEnhacement

nnn

User StoryUser Story

nnn

Stuff you know you will do!

Stuff you know you will NOT do!

The Mushy MiddleThis are the PBIs that deserve our focus when prioritizing.

Should the PBI move up?

Should the PBI move down?

Attributes and WeightsTo understand prioritization we need to “dig deep”.

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Prioritization Means Ordering

Do This Do OtherDo That

Do This

Do Other

Do ThatDo That

Do Other

Do ThisDo Other

Do That

Do This

To Order You Need Attributes

Do This

Do ThatAttribute1 Attribute2

To Sort You Need Values

Do This value

Do That value

value

value

Attribute1 Attribute2

It Helps To Group Attributes

Do This yes

Do That no

no

yes

Sales ServiceInternal Stakeholders

Does this backlog item directly improve your ability to do your job?

Not Everyone is Equal

Do ThisDo That no yes

Sales ServiceInternal Stakeholders

Does this backlog item directly improve your ability to do your job?

yes noweight 20 10

Sales hastwice the influence

Prioritizing for ProfitThe Business Perspective

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Three Core Groups

StakeholderAlignment

Strategic Alignment

DrivingProfit

Shows how you’re meetingmarket needs.

Shows how you align withthe big picture.

Shows how you’re going tomake money.

External / Internal Stakeholders

External: Customer personasPartnersChannel

Internal: Sales & MarketingProfessional ServiceCustomer CareThe System

Strategic Alignment

Strategic AlignmentGlobal Social Mobile Weight

weight 25 15 10DO THIS 1 1 35

DO THAT 1 1 25

Strategic AlignmentGlobal Social Mobile Weight

weight 25 15 10DO THIS 1 1 35

DO THAT 1 1 25

What is the most important driver of profit?

• Raising Prices• Growing More Customers• Reducing Operational Costs• Reducing Churn• Increasing Quality

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POLL QUESTION

Driving Profit

http://bit.ly/try-bizvalue

When Items Are “Equal”

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1. Better before cheaper: When you must decide between making something better or cheaper, choose to improve rather than cut prices.

2. Revenue before cost: When you must decide between finding a way to increase revenue or reducing cost, choose to look at ways to increase revenue.

3. Change anything to follow Rules 1 and 2. Why? Read the article or book.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kareanderson/2013/06/15/what-really-makes-companies-succeed-in-the-long-run/

A Well Prioritized Backlog

StakeholderAlignment

Strategic Alignment

DrivingProfit

At least oneitem for every stakeholder.

At least one item that aligns to strategy.

At least one item that drivesprofit.

Managing Implementation DetailsThe Developer Perspective

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Business Priorities

1 User Story2 User Story3 Bug Fix4 Enhancement5 User Story6 User Story7 User Story8 User Story9 User Story

…

Dev Team Analysis

3 Bug Fix4 Enhancement1 User Story2 User Story4 User Story5 User Story6 User Story7 User Story8 User Story

…

When Business and Dev Don’t Align…

Some Guidelines…

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Not More Than 7

Attributes!

Attributes and their weights can change!

1 User Story2 User Story3 Bug Fix4 Enhancement5 User Story6 User Story7 User Story8 User Story9 User Story

PBIs often move in “clusters” or “chunks”

Summary

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Summary

Prioritization exists at all levels of Agile.

Find the attributes that work for you.

Apply them consistently.

Reflect and improve on them.

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What do you want for the Feb 2018 webinar?

• Distributed Team Liftoffs / Kickoffs• Buyer and User Personas• Facilitating Online Meetings• How To Implement Lean Coffee at Scale• Analyzing Retrospective Data at Scale• Running Distributed Sprint Reviews• Committing to the Release• Motivating Distributed Teams• Testing at Scale• Defining Ready, Ready and Done, Done• My desired topic isn’t listed – email luke.hohmann@conteneo.co

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POLL QUESTION

Discussions

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Thank you for attending.

Our next webinar is 10-Jan-2018 on Managing Technical Architectures.

Luke Hohmannconteneo.co

Carlton Nettletonlookforwardconsulting.com

Order = function_of(Value, Effort, other attributes)

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Business Value

Effort / Cost

Impact Effort Matrixhttp://bit.ly/2sTMxMW